the devil's due
by Holly Chase
Summary: Love rips them to pieces over and over again. And they'll shout it from rooftops: Because they aren't perfect. They are far from it. / for reveur-de-minuit's 'Seven Deadly Sins' challenge (albus, lorcan, rose, james, victoire, hugo, dominique)
1. Albus: Avarice

**Albus' Avarice: **As a secular psychological concept, greed is, similarly, an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs. It is typically used to criticize those who seek excessive material wealth, although it may apply to the need to feel more excessively moral, social, or otherwise better than someone else. _- Wikipedia_

* * *

**Avarice **

_In which Albus beats lightning._

_._

See, sons, what things you are,  
How quickly nature falls into revolt  
When gold becomes her object.

_~Shakespeare – '2 Henry IV'~ _

_._

Albus has always been the Thunder. To his Dad, his brother and his sister. To his cousins, even, and most of them don't look even remotely like him. People talk about his huge family with dramatic gestures and wide, expressive eyes and they end with Albus. Like he's the Tag-Along or the Aftershock. It used to bother Albus a lot more than it does now; he's had time to get used to it.

.

When Albus tries out for the Quidditch team everything changes. The seventh year seeker drops out in favour of passing her final exams and Albus throws aside all inhibitions. This is his Chance. Albus grabs it with both hands and holds on tightly as it bucks and spirals out of control.

Albus is not letting go of this. Not ever.

.

The board is surrounded by people; the only words that Albus has time to read before being engulfed in newly discovered admirers are:

_Albus Potter - Seeker_

And that is all he needs to read.

.

James is a tough Captain and not one to sugar-coat or bubble-wrap predicaments. Albus loves the Quidditch training sessions. He might be a third year, but as he catches the Golden Snitch in sixty-seven seconds, Albus knows that he is good.

Not just good. Albus is the Best. With a capital 'B'.

.

Albus grits his teeth and ducks his head against the hail, just his luck to be playing for a potential position with the Wimbourne Wasps when he can barely see three inches before him. The bubble-headed charm may stop his glasses from fogging, but the overall issue of sight still stands.

Watches and glasses glint gold against the mist. Albus lunges and has to pull out of dives with off-form regularity. His hands slip down the handle of his broom and the wet sound of sleet. And then there is the Snitch. Albus reaches out with one hand.

.

Through the celebrations Albus smiles and grins and keeps his fist clenched tight around the snitch – the wings still flapping feebly.

.

When Albus pulls on the yellow and black uniform something inside of him twinges. He smiles, grabs his broom – _Lightning Strike_; tell you anything? When he steps out of the tent it is to screams and shouts. Ruffling his hair in a James-esque fashion, Albus shoots into the air at the ear-blasting explosion of noise.

A three and half minutes later, Albus is running across the pitch, trailed by his enthusiastic team members towards his family. They cast him into the air and pull him into their box where he is hugged within an inch of his Existence.

Maybe he isn't so much the Thunder to his family's Storm.

.

Albus doesn't believe in Life and Death. He believes in Here and There and Then and Now and Soon and After. He believes in Light and Dark and Stars and Suns and Magic. He believes in True Love. And the power it holds. Albus believes in Things.

Albus swoops through the air, alone. He can't hear anything except the wind rushing past his ears. All he can see is a blur and Albus laughs. This is his One True Love.

.

Albus can't pinpoint exactly when he needs to be more than Seeker. Maybe when Lily gets engaged: maybe when Uncle Charlie disappears. Anyway, Albus becomes Captain. There are more tear-streaks though, there's nothing anyone – even Albus – can do about that.

.

Until Albus needs more again. He can't just play Quidditch, even though he is the Best and Captain and Seeker. Albus realises what he needs around the time Teddy breaks-down. He needs to beat his family.

.

Albus plays harder and harder. His record time is narrowed to thirty seconds, he needs to be better. He needs to make everyone know his name. Everyone Must Know His Name.

.

And then they do. Albus smiles because he has finally beaten his Storm of a family. He feels the electricity of the forked light singe his _Lightning Strike_'s tail and it spurs him on faster: Faster. Somewhere far behind him, Albus hears the rumbling sound of thunder.

.

Albus falls. He spreads his arms wide in a desperate attempt to remain airborne. The wind rushes past him, Albus screams and screams. He sees the terrified eyes of team members as they chase after him. They nose-dive, but Albus is gone.

.

_Crack_! James yells, standing in the spectator's box. He attempts to wrestle his way from the booth; his family behind him. There are screams and tears and clenched fists and panic but they can't get past the guards who have predicted their moves and so they watch, helpless as Albus is carried off the pitch on a stretcher.

.

Then next time the public sees Albus he is in a wheel-chair. He waves and talks and smiles; no one can see the bitterness and sorrow hidden in the green depths of his eyes.

Only Albus knows the pain – not physical, partial-paralysis isn't painful; but mental. It rips at iron bars and roars and there's a thudding beat drumming away in the back of his mind.

.

Only Albus knows the Truth: he will never be able to walk again. Never be able to fly again. His One True Love will fade and vanish like summertime rain.

Only Albus knows the Fear.

Only Albus knows the Dark.

Only Albus knows the Fall.


	2. Lorcan: Wrath

**Lorcan's Wrath: **Wrath may be described as inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger. Wrath, in its purest form, presents with self-destructiveness, violence, and hate that may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries. _- Wikipedea_

* * *

**Wrath**

_In which Lorcan's punishment comes by silver blade._

_._

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,  
And ready mounted are they to spit forth  
Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls  
_~Shakespeare – 'King John'~_

.

As Lorcan watches; Louis smirks and runs a hand through his hair, messing it up. Girls swoon and giggle, Rose rolls her eyes and pulls Scorpius in the direction of a broom cupboard. Lysander tugs at Lorcan's robe, pulling him from the Great Hall towards the Transfiguration classroom.

It's a quick transaction; Lysander aims for desks by the windows so that they can look outside during the lesson. It's not fast enough, Lorcan sees the one thing he dreads above all others. The vision unfurls before his eyes in slow-motion, and then it's gone with only the memory left. It has been imprinted onto Lorcan's brain.

And it's replaying over and over again.

.

He takes the razor, and watches the sunlight glint from the serrated edges. Lorcan gulps, he doesn't want to do this. How did it even come to this? Lorcan can't quite remember the details. Only the sight of two sets of lips meeting and Lorcan's own heart shattering remains clear.

As all he can see turns red, Lorcan brings the blade down. Blood doesn't spurt from the wound, it trickles away in rivulets and it hurts so much. Lorcan places the blood-stained razor back to the pale skin of his upper arm. Pain blossoms from the clean cuts.

The pain is such a delicate web of blood and anger that Lorcan smiles. He is dizzy with power and blood and the rage blots all sight.

.

A cut for each time they kiss.

It's not enough; they smile too sickeningly and touch too often.

Cut, cut, cut.

Lorcan takes the blade and washes it of blood; it regains the pure silver colour. Whoever thought such an innocent tint could hide such a multitude of sins, as this one does?

Cut, cut, cut.

_You're – not - good – enough_.

These words are etched beneath Lorcan's skin and can only be seen by him. After all, he is the only one who can control his anger, pain and sadness into a single movement.

He's not good enough, but he can practice. Anger is a good way to spur on practices. It's why Lorcan Scamander is such a good magician. His little tricks lead a path to all hearts. _Abracadabra_.

Cut, cut, cut.

.

Lysander asks what's wrong. There's nothing wrong. After all, everything is just another word for nothing, right?

Everything and nothing, words that are worlds apart and yet are such similar concepts.

.

Everything and nothing for Lorcan is flirty and flighty. It's smirks and handshakes and aftershave. It's French swearing and lit-up blue eyes. It's Louis Weasley. And everything and nothing is all they'll ever be.


	3. Rose: Lust

**Rose's Lust:** Lust is an intense desire. It is usually thought of as excessive sexual wants; however, the word was originally a general term for desire. _- Wikipedia_

* * *

**Lust**

_In which Rose is the inferno._

_._

They are in the very wrath of love, and they will together; clubs  
cannot part them._  
~Shakespeare – 'As You Like It'~_

_._

Rose is impulsive and reckless and bold. She cares for little and loves even less. Through her years at Hogwarts she's pulled from group to group, relationship to relationship and argument to argument.

Her family warns her that she's not doing her name proud, she's too impetuous and it's dangerous. They watch her jump from lover to lover, and they know that she'll never stop because that is what Rose loves most.

To feel flushed skin pressing to hers, sweet kisses hounding her lips and heat of passion is what Rose lives for. Boyfriends and best friends dance around her and set like the sun once the desire leaves. Only her family remain, her coryphées swaying at her horizon.

.

His eyes are pools of grey, hard and mysterious. Rose has been told to stay away from him since her very first day of Hogwarts, but rules have always been made to be broken.

He's sorted in Gryffindor (_hmmm_), she's sorted into Gryffindor and it looks as though that's that. Her father wins; game over, before she can even hit play. But Albus is a Gryffindor and shares a dorm with Scorpius. They become best friends and Rose starts to perform.

.

So Rose's mission begins, she flirts and flutters and begs for his heart. But Scorpius knows Rose Weasley, who hunts her prey, feasts and leaves a trail of broken hearts in her wake. He keeps his heart far from Rose's sticky-fingered grasp.

Her desire for Scorpius only increases with every passing day in which she is not granted his love.

Neither will back down, Rose too impious and Scorpius too proud. It's a battle of wills and sins; and a winner cannot be cast if no checkmate can be pulled.

.

It all changes when Rose kisses him and murmurs the words of love that she has remembered after long years of forgetfulness. And Scorpius answers, fervour and covetousness masking any echo of lies within his whispered words.

Every moment becomes a song and they are the leads. Deadly, yet beautiful voices like the roses which grow in red heat of their lust.

With the fires of their souls licking their feet and burning their skin, Rose knows no better feeling than the ardour of Scorpius. Flames growing higher; Rose wonders whether they shall ever burn out, she and Scorpius simply shine so bright.

.

Her family knows that they'll not last. There is too much infatuation, too little emotion for this relationship to continue. Rose's inferno will snuff out Scorpius' spark and leave him to the shattered remains of his heart which he guarded so fiercely.

.

But Rose and Scorpius show no signs of extinguishing, of burning out. And emotions, true heartfelt sentiments, seep through the cracks of the wrathful shell.

The red heat begins to die, but the love does not and it leaves Rose wondering; _when did I give my heart to him?_


	4. James: Gluttony

**James' Gluttony: **Meaning to gulp down or swallow, gluttony is the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste. **Studiose** – eating too daintily._ - Wikipedia_

* * *

**Gluttony**

_In which James looks at his reflection._

.

They surfeited with honey and began  
To loathe the taste of sweetness.  
_~Shakespeare – '1 Henry IV'~_

.

His hazel eyes scan the image frantically. James blows his hair from masking his appearance, hands grasping at his face, he feels the skin. It's loose, but tugged taunt over pointed features.

James gasps in pain, biting down on his tongue. The taste of blood is sickly sweet in his dry mouth. James spits into the sink, and slides onto the tiled floor. He hears thumping footsteps, two sets, rushing upstairs.

"James, _JAMES_!" Lily shouts voice loud and desperate.

"Don't you dare," Albus bashes on the door which shakes under the pressure. "Don't you _dare,_ James." James wishes he could answer, but his throat is too dry and stinging with the aftertaste of blood. The door shakes again, and James can hear crying from the other side, more footsteps. These ones are heavier and James catches his mum and dad's familiar voices.

They don't understand quite what has happened; they don't see James every day. James heaves a dry sob; he doesn't have enough water in his body to provide tears. He doesn't know how he came to this and James is scared.

There's no way out for him.

.

It starts when Albus prods him in the Gryffindor common room.

"You've got to cut down, how many caldron cakes did you eat?" James grins and shoves Albus onto the floor.

"It's Halloween, everyone eats loads of food. And I saw you eat those toffee apples," Albus smiles sheepishly.

_He was joking_, James thought as he stood by the mirror in the bathroom. He studies his reflection. He's good-looking, everyone knows it. James does too, but maybe there was a grain of truth in Albus' words. From side on, James' stomach does seem to bulge a little.

He has to be in peak condition, James pulls on his robes. As captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, it's his responsibility to be fit. And that's how it started: a simple resolution to keep healthy.

.

Lily notices first, James goes running around the grounds more often and eats less. She thinks that he goes to the kitchens with Fred for food, but soon realises that James does no such thing.

When Albus and Fred notice too, Lily knows that something is seriously wrong with her elder brother.

.

They stage an intervention, trying to get him to open up. Nothing. James insists that nothing's wrong.

Then they try to get him to eat. James refuses; they command, beg, plead and sob but James stands firm until he screams for them to stop. He shouts and every angry, wept word is a dagger in Fred's side.

James' eyes dart from family member to family member, but a mist has settled over the irises. He no longer recognises them. They are the enemy, and they are fighting against the parasite that has lodged inside James. Fred watches his best friend glare at him with glazed eyes and blinks away tears.

One of them has to be strong.

.

James throws back his head and regains his voice. He screams, sobs catching in his throat. The door is blasted to pieces, and the wild, scared eyes of his family watch him. Lily runs to him and holds James close.

He cries, and yells himself hoarse, because James doesn't know if he can ever be made right again. No matter what his family say.


	5. Victoire: Sloth

**Victoire's Sloth: **Whoever is lazy (slack) in their work becomes kin to one who destroys (meaning The Evil-One, the devil because the devil is murderer) for the second time. He breaks again the command of God, Who sent him to work this time, for not obeying God, Who forbids them to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. _- Wikipedia_

* * *

**Sloth**

_In which Victoire is intangible for a time._

_._

Weariness  
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth  
Finds the down pillow hard.  
_~Shakespeare – 'Cymbeline'~_

_._

Victoire's always had her dreams. She wants to become a Healer; she wants to travel the world. She wants to ride a dragon; she wants to become an artist; she wants to be recognized. No, she doesn't want to be famous; she already is. Victoire wants to be known for more than her name.

She's so many things; indefinable, indescribable, impalpable. All at once, Victoire dances and sings and paints and reads. She's so definite in her indefinites.

Victoire wants to be a Princess – not a Queen; they don't get liberated from towers and dragons. Victoire wants to be rescued by a knight in shining armour upon a white steed.

She is told stories of fae and magic and Victoire wants more than anything to shine.

.

Teddy shimmers, he changes each time they meet. He smiles and sets Victoire's heart skipping. He drifts in and out of Victoire's busy and glowing life; but is always there when she calls.

Victoire needs Teddy less often, but she keeps him as close as she can because she can't bear to let him go. Teddy is her oldest friend. He's her handsome prince of old games. Victoire clings to Teddy Lupin and he holds her tightly. He can't help it; Victoire's always had that pull.

She's his irresistible moon and he's the crest of a wave, rushing and rising to meet her.

.

Victoire reaches her seventh year when everything crumbles. Teddy's left school and she has to help her cousins through all their tiny difficulties that serve only as an immaterial distraction from her own problems.

As Victoire helps Lily and Hugo through arguments and Fred through relationships, she feels her world spinning uncontrollably away from her grasp. She clutches the edge, her fingers hurt from the strain but she can't let go or she'll be in orbit.

.

Victoire wakes up in the dead of night; she holds back a scream – barely – and gingerly sips some water from the glass beside her bed. In her nightmare Victoire was falling, falling from the precipice that she has been balancing on for so long.

The knife's edge slits her feet and the cuts hurt her, but Victoire keep walking. Each step she takes feels like she is walking on broken glass.

Victoire remembers that she was once told of a mermaid who loved a man so much that she walked on broken glass for three days. The man fell in love with another princess and the mermaid was turned to sea-foam.

Victoire cries into her pillow and falls asleep again to see Teddy. He smiles crookedly, brown eyes soothing; he holds Victoire close and strokes her hair.

"Shush, Vic," he says softly. His voice is warm and smooth; Victoire wraps her arms around his neck. "Sweet dreams, Victoire, my love."

Victoire reaches to brush his lips, but Teddy is gone and she is floating.

.

Victoire finally gives out; she spins away from her world and watches as it explodes. In a huge bang and fire; rocks tumble and crash into one another. It's destruction at its finest and Victoire thinks it is beautiful.


	6. Hugo: Pride

**Hugo's Pride:** Pride is an inwardly directed emotion that carries two common meanings. With a negative connotation, pride refers to an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a satisfied sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, or a fulfilled feeling of belonging.

Victory disease denotes when in miliatry history, because of complacency or arrogance brought on by a victory or series of victories, an engagament ends disastrously for a commander and his force. _- Wikipedia_

* * *

**Pride**

_In which Hugo becomes a deity and falls to mortality._

.

You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,  
With meekness and humility; but your heart  
Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.  
_~Shakespeare – 'Henry VIII'~_

_._

Hugo opens his mouth and the sweet sound of innocence and purity shocks everyone to silence. With closed eyes, Hugo lets the music fill him up; gorgeous powerful notes echo through the room. Hugo feels everyone's eyes on him and his voice rising on the break of the enchantment that he has cast.

His soul is on fire, it blisters and burns and Hugo smiles because nothing has ever felt so perfect.

Hugo lets the atmosphere carry his voice; it washed and crashed down upon his captivated audience. Each new note held some sort of intensity that they were helpless to resist – even if they had wanted to. Fingers aching from clutching the pick so tightly, Hugo can barely feel anything that isn't elation.

It is simply spell-bounding.

Hugo drags out his final note, savouring the exhilaration that is making his hands shake. The applause is hesitant, fractured among the glamour that Hugo casts with his music. Then it grows, roaring and crying for more of the magical songs.

Hugo smiles, bows and walks from the stage. He relishes, but ignores, the voices calling for him. _Always leave them wanting more_.

.

Hugo's wings unfurl, they are ripped open at his shoulders and they burst into soaring, swooping life. Hugo rockets towards the sun, leaving a wispy trail of music and clouds behind.

.

_Dreams are like angels…_

.

Melanie presses sweet kisses to his lips. She tastes like sunbeams and honey and smells of spices. Her hair is constantly up in messy buns and her teeth jut slightly over her lower lip.

Her eyes are a dark brown, like chocolate. Hugo loves Melanie's eyes.

Then Hugo wakes up.

.

Hugo flies past battle fields and revelries and desolate places that scare him. He vows never to return to the abandoned place where there is only sand, met at the never changing horizon by the sky. Burning orange and brilliant blue; with the white hot sun stripping the sweaty skin form Hugo's back.

.

Hugo smiles, Melanie is stretched out across his settee. He blinks. Flopping down on the designer couch, Hugo blinks away tears. There is no one to wipe them away.

.

"_HUGO_!" they _scream_ his name. There are catcalls and whistling and shouts and yells and Hugo feels dizzy. When his fingers reach the keyboard however, everything fades away. Pressing the C major chord, the magic begins.

.

_If words are all we have…_

_._

Hugo sings. He sings and sings his heart out. In the box Hugo can see his family, then in separate boxes further up are Louis and Albus. Albus has his eyes closed. Louis' lips are parted.

Rose fills his vision; her eyes are full of tears. Hugo wants them to go away so his sings about love and beauty and dancing. She smiles and Hugo feels the rush of his power fully for the first time.

He smiles, not arrogantly, but not a world away either.

.

It is the first night that Hugo hasn't dreamt of Melanie. Instead his head is full of music and magic. It's a breakthrough.

He needs coffee. Lots of it.

.

Hugo spreads his wings wide and soars.

.

"No," says Hugo. He shakes his head as Jean, his manager, trots after him. "No, I'm not a professional model; that's Louis. I do clothes-on work; behind the scenes has nothing to do with my music."

He thinks that his magical voice will protect him. Hugo is proud of his decision.

.

_If only you knew…_

.

But the higher one rises, the further they have to fall. Hugo flies to close to the burning sun, his wings wax and melt. Then Hugo falls and falls.

He is shattered by the wasteland, and there is only Melanie and the broken remains of his songs. They create an image of sickness and despair.

And then Hugo wakes up.


	7. Dominique: Envy

**Dominique's Envy: **Envy is a resentment which "occurs when someone lacks another's quality, achievement or possession and wishes that the other lacked it."_ - Wikipedia_

* * *

**Envy**

_In which Dominique watches the sky_

_._

When Envy breeds unkind division:  
There comes the ruin, there begins  
confusion.

_~Shakespeare - '1 Henry VI' ~_

Dominique always knew it would be Victoire because Victoire means victory and there is no way someone can lose with a name like that. So Dominique prepares herself for an uphill battle that she can never win.

.

Victoire paints her sea because it whispers to her and enchants her with its crashing and constant movements.

Teddy stands behind her, the world sparkling in his eyes that change so fast that they glimmer with colours that don't exist and hint at those which can't. Smirking, he wraps his hand around Victoire's, Dominique holds her breath, but he just manoeuvres the brush, streaking the canvas that is plastered with blues and greens and browns. The sea swirls around the line, rising and falling with the reflections of the moonlight piercing the waters straining at their bounds.

Sighing, Dominique throws her head back. The wind twists through her hair, writhing, snake-like amongst the twisted strands of red.

What Victoire doesn't realise is that the real magic happens far above their heads and everything else is just a mirage of its perfection.

.

He is her heaven, her knight upon a white horse. But instead of rescuing her, he was ensnared by the brave and bold and beautiful Victoire who captured Dominique's castle and stamped on her dreams with pale bare feet.

.

Dominique glimpses her heaven once.

It's bright and full of light with Teddy waiting and smiling. Dominique begins to run, but Victoire – it's always Victoire – is faster.

Dominique's heaven belongs to Victoire and now Dominique knows that it was forever hers.

.

Dominique stares up at the stars. The moon bathes her in silvery light and she searches for the brightest star. It shimmers, a single island of white light. It stays at the same point above Dominique's head, just visible from her window.

This is one place where Dominique shines brighter than anyone – even Victoire – because her star is the pole star that shines from light years away and will burn forever.

.

Then Dominique realises that Victoire has bested her in this too, Victoire is the sun. And the sun is the greatest star in the sky.

.

She is a girl with stars in her eyes.

She can't let real life bring her down for long; she can't let Teddy pull her in, because Dominique can run across the world.

She just needs to believe.

.

It's only the brightest stars that go supernova.

If Dominique is a star she'll blow up with a huge bang that can take out whole worlds.

There's no way that Dominique will ever go out with a whimper – she's a stellar explosion waiting to happen.

She's ticking and someday, she'll detonate.

.

The day she does, everyone around her will reel from the shock.

.

Dominique has to run before it's too late.

.

Still, she watches the sky. She's up there and they are with her.

.

And yet she runs because if she continues maybe she'll make it.

.

One day Dominique tires of running and sits down in the rain. It pours around her, dripping from the end of her nose and the tendrils of her hair. It mingles with the salty tears that she can finally cry.

And then she laughs because she doesn't cry for herself.

For the first time her weeping isn't self-pitying.

She cries for everyone else.

.

Her family reach out for her and Dominique falls back into their warm embrace.

For the first time since puberty Dominique hugs and kisses and loves Victoire because no envious creature clings to her and poisons her sister's sweet, kind, amorous words.

Guilt swells inside of Dominique and breaks dam. Victoire hugs her and holds her tight and promises that they are forever because Victoire, Dominique and Louis are the Veela-Weasley's and they have been cast upon the stars: Louis with his stardom; Victoire with her heaven and Dominique with her light.

.

When Dominique finally outshines her galaxy, she smiles and laughs and dressed completely in white that glows with her happiness. Nakshatra waits at the altar; his smile is brilliant white against coffee-bean skin.

Dominique lights the two of them up with her detonation. They are stars and together they'll make the biggest explosion in history.

.

After all, Dominique's a safety hazard. It's just as well her new husband's one too.

.

She collapses against Nakshatra who cannot hold both of them. Gravity collapses around them.

The potential is electric and breaks in waves of an interstellar ocean.

.

She and Nakshatra burn up in their own atmosphere, and the carbon fusion is bewildering, a stranger to their worlds.

.

They implode and explode and everything is lit-up by them.

.

They'll go down in history alright.

Dominique was supernova after all.


End file.
